Surprises

I assume most children are no different than my 11 year old daughter about now. Only 5 days till Christmas and she is about to “bust”! At least I hope most children have that anticipation, no matter how small the surprise may be, for a child, it is enough to have the excitement, just knowing they are going to receive some gift of which they have no ideal what it will be.

Personally, and I also assume most people my age have a similar attitude. I feel like I have had “enough surprises” in my lifetime. I say that with a smile in that most of the real ‘surprises’ we get as adults on not in the form of a ‘gift wrapped” package.

This Christmas season we have been pleasantly surprised with MN weather. It is on the tongue and thoughts of everyone. Today it reached almost 40 degrees here in the center of the state. I looked at the 10 day forecast (MSN internet) and nothing much is to change over the next week. Everyday had a 0% chance of precipitation. That is fine by me, I am still rooting for a “Brown Christmas”, to the discuss of many women and children. Give me a break is all I say, I have lived here 24 years and it will be a first, if we see the ground bare on Christmas day. Parts of the state do have snow, but where we are, we are experiencing a “winter drought”, rare, but welcome.

Here is why I think I will pass on “surprises”. In the year 2000 we received the biggest surprise of our lifetimes, speaking of me and my wife. You see, we were 43 years old. Our “only child” had grown up and left home in ‘97. Three years of freedom from raising a child really did me no harm, that I could see. Then in March of 2000 my wife informed me that she would need a “pregnancy test”, that was her mild way of trying to break the “news” to me. I tell you, some things in life are hard to accept as a possible reality, I assumed that was “impossible”. As history proves, my assumption was as wrong as it could be. No matter if I live to be a hundred, I will not receive a bigger surprise than that was!

My friends enjoyed the news far more than I did, at first anyway. A child is the next most precious thing to “grand-children”, no mistake. But it does take some time to adjust to the “ideal”, at least when you thought it could not happen. It took me until she was every bit of 1 minute old, to “adjust”, then everything was alright in my world.

Our tradition is to open gifts on Christmas Eve, that gives parents the ‘possibility’, of not being rudely aroused from bed at 4 AM on Christmas morning. This year, Christmas morning falls on Sunday. Since we are a church attending family, it will make Sunday morning a lot easier than if we had a gift opening ceremony before breakfast.

Speaking of which, and I don’t want to spoil the holidays with politics, but me being “me” I can’t let “one opinion” pass. Every Christmas over the last few years we are barraged with missiles from the “militant atheist” crowd, as if the very sight of a ‘nativity scene”, in some way “harms their fragile atheist faith”.

There is a irony in Christmas. There are some Christian churches who also are ‘anti-Christmas’, but on different grounds from the atheists. The ‘anti-Christmas’ Christians say, since Jesus was probably not born on Dec. 25, people should not celebrate his “birthday”. They point to lots of other arguments too, which I don’t have time or patience to ramble on about and I am sure, my readers don’t have the time nor patience to read it, even if I did. But here is the irony. In spite of all anti-Christmas and anti-Christ movements throughout history, come next Sunday, all over the world and most especially since the “internet” has now gone to nearly every corner on earth, people will “have to” acknowledge that Jesus Christ lives in the faith of millions of people. On that one day, in all developed countries and in the world generally, the thought of “Jesus” enters peoples mind, whether they consciously like it or not.

My conclusion on the matter is this. It does not matter how or when Christmas came to be celebrated by so many people on earth, the lesson we ought to lean is this, say and believe what you will, but, JESUS ALWAYS WINS!